AP 0041: How Do You Include Other People in Your Own Paid Product, and Are They Compensated?

AskPat 41 Episode Transcript

Pat Flynn: Hey, what's up everybody? This is Pat Flynn, and welcome to Episode 41 of AskPat. I'm here to help you by answering your online business questions five days a week. I'm so happy you're here; thank you so much.

One of the toughest things for me when I first started doing online business was transition from, you know—I had that nine to five job. Actually, it was more like nine to seven every day, working in an architecture firm, but you know, I just had one specific task or role that I was doing in that job, but then when I switched to online business, I was every role. I wore all the hats, from marketing director to content creator to web developer to HR to marketing and accounting.

And for accounting specifically, there was one tool that helped me get rid of a lot of headaches, and that was FreshBooks. They are the official sponsor for this episode here, of AskPat, so I would recommend—if you're getting started out and you want to do it right and get all your books straight, bookkeeping and accounting, and make it easy for you to search through later—I recommend FreshBooks. Head on over to GetFreshBooks.com, and then all you have to do is put in “Ask Pat” where it says “How Did You Hear About Us?” That would be awesome.

Now, today's question comes from Andrea from Mexico City, which is so cool, and she's asking about what's involved with getting other people into your own products. Let me clarify by playing her question right now.

Andrea: Hello, Pat. I am Andrea from Mexico City, living currently in Malaysia. I want to ask, how does it works when you are a guest on someone else's paid product, like for example, with John Lee Dumas, you did a webinar for his product, Podcaster's Paradise. Did you get some revenue from that participation or when you invite someone? Well, it doesn't apply for you, because you don't have paid products, but how does it works to have a guest on a paid product? Do you offer some shares, or you offer an affiliate links? I would really like to know that, since I released my first product in Spanish on how to create a blog, and I would like to invite some known bloggers in Spanish language to my paid product, but I don't know if I should offer them revenue, or how does this works?

Hope this question gets elected, since I haven't heard a lot of information about this around in the internet. Thank you so much, and keep doing this great work. I love your show and your web. Bye, bye.

Pat Flynn: Andrea, thank you so much for your question. I just think it's so cool that you're over in Malaysia and you're asking me a question, and I'm here in San Diego. I mean, before I get to answering your question, it just blows my mind, still, how we are all able to be so connected and reach other people around the world. We can use the tools that are available to us today to change lives on the other side of the earth. It's so amazing. I'm getting questions from Germany, from France, from Poland, from Quebec, just everywhere. This is so cool, so I hope that just shows all of you listening that you have the power now, more than ever, to really share your message with the whole world, you know, anybody who's interested in it and who will stumble upon it. We can literally change lives around the world. It's just so cool.

Andrea, again, thank you so much for your question, especially sharing that you're over in Malaysia right now. This is awesome. Now, to get to your question, Andrea—and I want to provide a little bit of background information and clarification for everybody listening who may not know about the exchange John Lee Dumas and I had. The background information on that is, John Lee Dumas, who is a host of a show at EntrepreneurOnFire.com, amazingly and wildly successful podcast, he created a product called Podcaster's Paradise. It's a community and a series of wonderfully-filmed videos to help people with their podcasts, help people monetize their podcasts and so forth, and I'm actually a part of the community myself now. But before I become a part of the community myself, John invited me to come on and do a Google Hangout for him and his audience. And so, Andrea is asking, well, what was that exchange like, how did it happen, was I compensated, and things like that?

I will say, I was not compensated in the form of money, and I wasn't even offered that, and that's okay. I didn't want that. Actually, John asked me and I said yes right away, and I did that because he and I are good friends and I'm more than happy to help him and provide value for him and his audience. But there was something in it for me. Not only was I providing something for John— and that's always good, you want to do favors for others and they'll do favors for you too down the road—but I was able to get in front of his audience and provide value as an authority leader. I was invited to the show, and I came on as an expert and talked about specific things related to podcasting, and in the process I may have been introduced to people in his community who would have never found me otherwise. Those were things that were the benefit for me.

That gives you little bit of the background information on that. If you have a product already, you have the option of having other people sort of add to that product. Even as you're selling it, you might include information from other experts in your book, or in your product or course for example, or over time you can invite people to come onto your membership site and have them provide more value. You can add additional resources that come from or are provided by other people as well, and so let me go over my thoughts on that process.

The first thing you want to do is, if this is something you want to do, and you feel like you can add value—I think it's important to consider adding other people's content and other people's presence on your own product because there's a lot of things that you have to admit that you aren't an expert in yourself but could still be beneficial for you and your audience. And so, that's why I think this is something that's good to consider. But the first step is, you actually want to find out who would help you provide the most value to your audience and your product. That's the most important thing, is doing the research, understanding what it is that your audience needs, and is there anybody out there who might even be able to better provide that information that you? And you want to, perhaps, get them on and come in and provide value in one way or another.

The guys over at Fizzle.co, they do an amazing job of doing this, and you know, I was more than happy to get on and provide a class for them, an entire class on affiliate marketing for them, because they did something for me too, which was help the redesign of the Smart Passive Income site. Now I don't know how they work it out with these other people they have on to provide case studies and success stories for their show, but I wouldn't be surprised if they all did it for free, because there is a value exchange there. In exchange for the value that these guests are providing for their audience as Fizzle.co, they are getting exposure to people they wouldn't normally get exposure to. They're able to share their story and build a relationship with those people, which could lead to further sharing or a relationship, or perhaps even a customer down the road, if that's the case. And a lot of times people just want to share information, because they know it's going to be helpful. I mean, a lot of people will just do it because of the kindness out of their good heart. Fizzle.co's a great example of a company that's doing this, and doing it extremely well, and providing a ton of value as a result of bringing other people onto their course.

Once you find out who you might bring on—and you can even ask your audience, that would be a great thing to do if you have a membership site. “Hey, who would you like to see come on and have me do an interview, just for you guys?” That's your audience or your existing customers telling you, and if you can do that—and you can even use that as leverage to get those people on. “Hey, I have a community here. They're fired up. They want you to come on and help talk about topic X or topic Y, or topic Z.” People are going to be compelled to share to people who want them to come on.

You've figured out who you want on, and now you have to just reach out to them and ask, and that's awesome, that's really cool. And you know, there is a value exchange here, remember, it's not only just them providing value for you and your audience, but you're providing value to them by introducing your community to them, allowing your community to interact, if it's a Google Hangout. I mean, that was the cool thing about what John and I did, was I was able to field questions from the audience. But even if it's just a recorded interview, or a podcast episode, or even just an article, or a resource, or a free ebook or something, that's going to help them get more exposure than they would have normally gotten if they didn't do that. Keep that in mind during your exchange, when you're asking.

But also, something you want to keep in mind is that you have to be, or you should be, completely honest with those people when you ask them to provide value for you and your community. You want to tell them that it will be for paid members only, or it will be on a sales page, if you're going to put that person's face on the sales page or that person's name on your sales page. You need to be completely honest, because the worst thing that you could do is ask for a favor from somebody like that, to have them help you add more value to your content or your paid product, and then they didn't know that you were going to have to require people to pay to get access to it, and that just leaves a bad taste in their mouth. It's going to ruin that relationship, and you don't want that to happen. People have done that with me before. People have asked me to do an interview, and I thought it was for a podcast or something; I wasn't told where it was going to go. And then, all of a sudden, I see my face under Bonus Number One on that person's sales page. And all of a sudden, people are seeing my face there, and they might be more inclined to buy something because of that, and I don't know if that product's going to take care of them or not. I just don't know that: I did this one interview, and I don't know what the rest of the product is like.

Of course, you need to be completely honest and up front with these people that you're asking to come on and help you. You're asking them for a favor, so you need to do them a favor and tell them everything about this product, so they know and they're comfortable with it. And once they are, they're going to provide better value for you if they're comfortable and they know exactly what's going on. Again, keep that in mind.

Lastly, as far as compensation, like I said, I did the one with John Lee Dumas for free. I was more than happy to do that. I did the one with Fizzle.co for free, although that was more of a pro bono exchange, although I probably would have done that for free anyway. But you can offer something for those people. If it's somebody you really want to come on, and they would only do it for some cash, then give them some cash, because that is something you know is going to provide value for your audience. It would be an investment, it would be a business expense. Typically, what most marketers do is, they offer an affiliate commission for people, and that's sort of the halfway marketing strategy, saying, “Hey, if you help promote this, that you're in it, you can also help promote it and get paid for it.” Another step above that might be to say, “Hey, well the regular affiliate commission is 50 percent. For you, since you're a part of it, and you're so nice and you were generous with your time, I'll give you 80 percent or 75 percent commission.” Giving them a little bit something extra to help them and make them feel like they're being compensated for their time, that would help.

Although, with the whole affiliate marketing thing and asking people to promote it, you got to be careful. There's lines there. You can't just say, “Okay, here's your affiliate link. Go promote it.” I would start with just massaging that conversation and say, “Hey, you know, I do have an affiliate program. If you really like this, I can give you a tour of it. I can even give you access to it, if you'd like. You can see where you're going to be placed. If you resonate with this, and you think your audience would like it, too, I'd be happy to give you a higher-than-normal affiliate commission for this. What do you think?” You know, just being really casual about it, and being, again, honest and upfront about everything that's going to be going on, and that's how you could perhaps compensate the people who are doing you a favor.

Thank you so much, Andrea, for your question. It was a great question, and you're right, it's something that isn't talked about very often, but we see it happen all the time, so thank you for that. I'm going to send you an AskPat teeshirt for having your question featured here on the show. If you, the listener, have a question for AskPat, just head on over to AskPat.com, it's really easy.

And of course, I want to mention the sponsor of this episode, which is FreshBooks. They're doing a sixty-day extended free trial, so if you go that link that I mentioned earlier, GetFreshBooks.com, and where it says, “How Did You Hear About Us?” put in “Ask Pat”, That will help you get started with easy accounting and bookkeeping right up front. And you want to do this right away, because the worst to do is something like I did, which is not keep track of everything, and then when I finally got serious about accounting and bookkeeping, having to go back in time and find all that information that should have been entered right from the start. So again, head on over to GetFreshBooks.com, put in “Ask Pat” in the “How Did You Hear About Us?” Section, and that will be awesome.

Of course, thank you, Andrea, for your question, and then I'm going to leave you with a quote, like I always do, and this is a quote from Dan Pink, Daniel Pink who wrote the book To Sell Is Human. This is the quote: “Any time you're tempted to upsell someone else, stop what you're doing and upserve instead.” One of my most recent, all-time favorite quotes. “Any time you're tempted to upsell someone else, stop what you're doing and upserve instead.” Thanks so much for listening, and I'll see you in the next episode of AskPat.